Axial flow blood pump

Abstract

An axial flow blood pump having a rotor rotatably mounted in a housing. The rotor includes at least two rotor blades having different configurations.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to the art of medical devices. More specifically, the present invention is concerned with an axial flow blood pump.BACKGROUND[0002]Many cardiac pathologies require a heart transplant. However, there are more patients than heart donors available and there is often a need to use a mechanical device to assist the patient's heart while waiting for a suitable donor. For example, blood pumps are used to assist the heart in patient with severe congestive heart failure. One problem associated with such pumps is that they often create large shear forces in the blood, which can cause blood cell degradation over time, such as hemolysis. Such degradation is toxic to the patient. Another problem is that the design of most blood pumps are tuned to function optimally in a short range of RPM (rotations per minutes) thus rendering them less efficient along all patient regimes and therefore creating potentially more turbulence, shear stress an...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005]Advantageously, the use of rotor blades having two or more configurations within a single rotor allows the rotor to accommodate optimally many flow regimes through the pump.

Problems solved by technology

However, there are more patients than heart donors available and there is often a need to use a mechanical device to assist the patient's heart while waiting for a suitable donor.

One problem associated with such pumps is that they often create large shear forces in the blood, which can cause blood cell degradation over time, such as hemolysis.

Such degradation is toxic to the patient.

Another problem is that the design of most blood pumps are tuned to function optimally in a short range of RPM (rotations per minutes) thus rendering them less efficient along all patient regimes and therefore creating potentially more turbulence, shear stress and cavitation, which cause again blood cell degradation.

As blood flow in humans varies naturally significantly when the patient switches between resting and moving, such pumps design induce inefficiencies affecting adversely blood degradation.

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